Punishment aka What Is Mine

“He’s not housebroken yet,” she said listlessly. “He probably just wants company. Kristiane will wake up now and then that’s that.”

But she still didn’t get up. Adam let the dog out of the girl’s room. It peed on the floor. Adam went and got a bucket and cloth. The whole living room smelled of Ajax when he went back to the bathroom and returned with the dog under his arm.

“Party,” he said, with forced humor. “On a Wednesday?”

“It’s a kind of book group, really. Apart from the fact that we rarely have time to read the same book, at least. We’ve been doing it since secondary school. Once a month. And, like I said, we got a bit…”

She blushed. Not because she’d had too much to drink the night before. That was none of Adam’s business. But because he made himself so at home in her apartment and was sitting with her dog on his lap, on her sofa. His hands were still wet with her water and her cleaning products.

“Later on in the evening, one of us just had to know how many the others had…”

Adam had never been with anyone other than his wife. Johanne didn’t think she’d ever met a man who could say that.

Are you telling the truth? she thought. Or is this just another way to make an impression? To make you different?

“… slept with,” she completed the sentence.

“Now I’m not quite…”

“… with me?”

She immediately regretted saying it.

“There is a point,” she quickly added. “There was lots of joking around and laughing, of course. Late evenings with good girlfriends often end up like that. A bit like when boys have to list their five favorite rock albums of all times. The ten best quarterbacks. Things like that.”

Adam had a big lap. His thighs were broad and there was room for the whole of the King of America between them. The dog lay with its mouth open and eyes half-closed and looked content.

“I’m sure we all lied a bit. The point is…”

“Yes, I’m intrigued, I must say.”

The words were sarcastic. The voice was friendly. She didn’t know which to believe.

“We leave a few out,” she said. “Everyone has someone they would rather not remember or include.”

He lifted his gaze from the dog and looked straight at her.

“Yes, well, not everyone,” she said, and pointed at the table as if she wanted to explain who she meant to include.

“But we did. Those of us who were here yesterday. We left out some names. Over the years we’ve all been involved with people who we either discovered very quickly were not our type or who it’s just embarrassing to think that you’ve actually… slept with. So as time passes, we forget them. Consciously or unconsciously. Even though their names generally still linger in our minds, we choose not to mention them. Not even to close friends.”

He carefully put the puppy down on the floor. It whined and wanted to be let up again immediately. Adam pushed it firmly away and pulled the document closer. The dog padded over to a corner and lay down with a thump.

“There’s only one ‘boyfriend’ here,” he said. “Karsten Asli. And he’s also down as friend, or former friend really, of another. Do you think this Asli may have gone out with more of the mothers?”

“Not necessarily. It might be someone completely different. Someone that none of them has mentioned. Either because they’ve repressed the whole episode, or because they don’t want to admit…”

“But these mothers know how serious it is,” he interrupted. “They know how important it is that they tell the truth, that the lists we’ve asked them for are correct.”

“Yes,” she nodded. “They’re not lying. They’re repressing. Would you like a drink? A whisky? A gin and tonic?”

When he looked at his watch, it seemed to be automatic, as if he couldn’t reply to the offer of a drink without checking the time first. Maybe Johanne was right; it was possible that Adam didn’t drink at all.

“I’m driving,” he said and hesitated. “So, no thanks. Even though it does sound good.”

“You can leave the car here if you like,” she said nonchalantly, adding, “No pressure. I can’t know if these ladies have all had the same boyfriend. It’s just an idea. There’s something so vengeful about this man’s crimes. So bitter. So evil! I find it easier to imagine that it’s driven by rejection from a woman, several women or perhaps even all women, rather than simply being pissed off with… the tax authorities, for example.”

“Don’t say that,” said Adam. “In the U.S…”

“In the U.S. there are examples of people who have killed simply because their Big Mac wasn’t hot enough,” said Johanne. “I think we’d be wise to stick to our own territory.”

“What actually happened between you and Warren?”

Johanne was surprised that she didn’t react more violently. Ever since Adam had said that he knew Warren, she had been waiting for that question. And as he hadn’t asked, she just assumed that he wasn’t interested. She was both pleased and disappointed. She didn’t want to talk about Warren. But the fact that Adam had not asked earlier might indicate an indifference that she was not entirely happy about.

“I don’t want to talk about Warren,” she said calmly.

“Okay. If I’ve crossed the line in any way, I apologize. That wasn’t my intention.”

“You haven’t upset me,” she said, and forced a smile.

“I think I will have a drink, after all.”

“How will you get home?”

“Taxi. Gin and tonic please, if you’ve got one.”

“I said I did.”

The ice cubes clinked loudly as she carried through two gin and tonics from the kitchen.

“Sorry, don’t have any lemon,” she said. “Warren let me down badly, professionally and emotionally. As I was so young, I put most emphasis on the latter. But now, I’m more angry about the former.”

There was too much gin in the drink. She made a face and added:

“Not that I think about it much anymore. It was a long, long time ago. And as I said, I would rather not talk about it.”

“Cheers! Another time, perhaps.”

He raised his glass and then took a sip.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not now, not ever. I’m finished with Warren.”

The silence that followed was not awkward for some reason. Some half-grown children were making a noise in the garden, trying to retrieve a badly aimed soccer ball. It was a summer sound that made them smile, but not to each other. It was around half past nine. Johanne felt the gin and tonic go straight to her head. A light, comfortable fuzziness after only one sip. She put the drink down in front of her. Then she said:

“If we play with the idea that we are looking for an old boyfriend, or someone who perhaps wanted to be the boyfriend of one of these mothers, the message fits in rather well. Now you’ve got what you deserved. There’s no way to hit a woman harder than taking her child.”

“No way to hit a man harder, either.”

Johanne looked at him absentmindedly. Then it dawned on her.

“Oh… sorry. Sorry, Adam, I wasn’t thinking…”

“That’s okay. People have a tendency to forget. Probably because the accident was so… bizarre. I’ve got a colleague who lost a son in a car accident two years ago. Everyone talked to him about it. Somehow a car accident is something that everyone can relate to. Falling off a ladder and killing yourself and your mother in the fall is more…”

He smiled tightly and sipped his drink.

“John Irving style. So no one says anything. But it’s probably just as well. You were in the middle of a train of thought.”